


the curious case of loving a celebrity

by jeontae



Category: Infinite (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 12:11:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15339621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeontae/pseuds/jeontae
Summary: loving a celebrity, in reverse.





	the curious case of loving a celebrity

**xi.**

“take care of it,” you say, rocking gently on your armchair. “it’s the last album i have.”

your child is fascinated by how vintage it looks, the worn edges of the plastic, the little fold that has been smoothed out on one of the slightly discoloured pages, telling of its age. she fingers over the silver ink on the plastic cover. “are these signatures real?”

“i saw them sign it with my own eyes, dear.” you smile at the memory of his silver marker gliding across the page, the way he smiled and thanked you for coming. the memory used to trigger a bubbly feeling in your stomach, tasting of youth and exuberance. now, it is just a fond memory you hold on to.

“you could have sold it for so much money back then, though.”

yes, you could have. but of all the albums you had sold, this one you just couldn’t bring yourself to let go of.

“take care of it,” you say again. “i trust you.”

she smiles at you sweetly. the dumb child. “do you regret it? loving them.”

“only sometimes,” you smile back.

**x.**

it’s been seven years, and the first news about them that you actually register is, “… just got married.” 

it is no longer as earth shattering, you no longer feel as if your heart just got ripped into shreds the way it used to feel. he has found the one he loves, and so have you. 

you sort of miss those days, when your joy was so easily made and your gloom so simply dispelled. they did make you very happy once upon a time; that was indisputable.

and so you give them a chance again, rewatch the videos that had brought you so much laughter when you needed it, listen again to their voices which had given you ease in darker moments. you relearn their quirks, the way they smile, the little habits they have, like dusting off a favourite book and reading it again. there’s a lot you’ve missed out, but catching up on them now reminds you why you ever loved them so deeply. and why you’re learning to fall in love all over again. 

and this time, it’s a love you’re going to make sure you can live with.

 

**ix.**

as real life became, well, realer, you start to lose track of their activities. but instead of guilt, there settled an overwhelming sense of relief. the kind that comes with releasing a weight on your shoulders. you’re finally able to live a life without the heavy obligation.

you wonder when the floaty joy and excitement became this heavy stone that had grown in your gut. 

but it doesn’t matter now.

 

**viii.**

they’d disbanded. well, they hadn’t _disbanded_ exactly, but two members had left to pursue their own activities.

you sort of feel like you should be angry, or maybe betrayed, but all you can muster is a vague, dull weariness. perhaps it’s a good thing. you’re able to think objectively now.

the distinction had finally been made clear. they were indeed selling their brotherhood, selling their intimacy, selling their inspirational rags-to-riches story.

but that didn’t mean that they were lying. just because they were selling it didn’t mean they were lying about it. it was the truth at a point in time.

in fact it _is_ the truth, and they were sincere about it. they had to be. they had to be sincere about it at a point in time. and that’s enough for you. to know that you loved something genuine, something beautiful, underneath it all.

 

**vii.**

they were, at the end of the day, performers. they were selling an image, and you had fallen right into the trap. the distinction between _ human _ and  _ marketable product _ vanished, or was intentionally never made clear. it hurt. you had so easily gobbled up everything they were selling, the illusion they had crafted. it was embarrassing.

no one understood. you felt like you had just broken up, but with a man (or several men) who didn’t even know you. it ended without ever having begun at all. the wild dreams you had about meeting them and having a happily ever after never seemed stupider. those who called you delusional and immature never seemed more right. you had always believed that the kind of love you had for them was transcendent and selfless, but it seemed now that in the process you had developed a sort of entitlement towards them.  somewhere along the way it became justifications, it became excuses.

it was time to let go.

twitter became a popularity contest. the tirades and fanwars were endless. at the same time you got sick and tired of it, you started recognizing the toxicity of the industry. the double standards, the ridiculous amount of hate, the overwhelming negativity. 

personalities were neatly packaged and commercialized. they were selling their music yes, but also their person. what difference was there between them and those who sold their bodies? they do know they’re being sexualized, don’t they? and their bosses know it too, don’t they? 

of course. of course the bosses do. they were the ones fuelling it.

at some point in time, tweeting about them became less of a joy and more of an obligation. to put it a little more dramatically, sometimes your self-worth depended on how many retweets you got. other times it depended on how others hurled insults anonymously at you. it got tiring. 

real life started to take over. studies. your family. your friends. your real-life physical needs. it now seemed that there were actually things more important to you than they were. yet still there was hesitation. you still pushed yourself to catch their updates, or else you wouldn’t consider yourself a real fan. the connection between you and them would disappear if you chose to give it up. you weren’t ready for that.

 

**v.**

on hindsight, your reaction seems laughable. but at that point in time, it seemed like the world was ending. it seemed there would no longer be any joy in your life. your world had become lightless. 

he was dating a girl. a girl who wasn’t you. 

when the news first came out, you couldn’t help but burst into tears at the shock of it. you knew this would happen, you knew it was inevitable. and yet your heart felt like it been physically shredded, your mind was both mess and vacuum. you love him, you can acknowledge that. by logic you would wish with all your heart for his happiness, and you do. yet at the same time, even if he really was dating, you wished you didn’t know. you wished he had better kept the secret. you wouldn’t mind being lied to if it meant that your heart would still be in one piece.

the tweets from your online friends were a mixture of support and disappointment, and you didn’t know which side to stand on, for you felt both so deeply and acutely.

you begin to realize that you were misled, and you wonder whose fault it was. his? for claiming to be your “eternal boyfriend” with that sweet, beguiling smile. or you? who stupidly believed in it.

the vague emptiness you had felt previously seemed to solidify.

he denied the scandal later on, but the damage was done.

 

**iv.**

they were at the peak of their career, while you dawdled about your life. seeing them clinch award after award, breaking records and making history brought tears of pride and joy to your eyes. they were no longer the little baby faced boys you grew up with, but seasoned veterans, charismatic and powerful, maturing in a way you thought you should be, too. as the afterglow faded it became painfully apparent what this new popularity meant. you simply became a smaller speck of black amongst the sea. they belong to the stage, the sky, where they feel their best, shine their hardest. and you are but a little faceless person, existing behind a screen.

you wanted so badly to just  _ know  _ them, know what goes through their heads every night before they go to bed. what insecurities do they hide, what masks do they put on before they face their fans?

and then you would shake those thoughts away. they were simply a product of your own imagination.

 

**iii.**

you were 16 when you saw them in real life, in the flesh, for the first time ever. when you first knew of your country being one of the stops on their world tour, you could barely contain the tears of joy. these people whom you have only ever seen behind a screen, appearing before your very eyes. they were actual, real people. you couldn’t comprehend it. and there was even a fansigning!

you spent nights planning and strategizing, coming up with different excuses just so your mom would allow you to go to the concert. should you ask her when she’s about to fall asleep so she doesn’t even know what she’s agreeing to? should you beg, even cry if it should come to that? should you just work a part-time job and go to the concert secretly? thankfully, none of these dumb ideas materialize, and it ends up being the “first and last time” she will ever allow you to go to one. 

you spent nights rolling around in your bed, a heady sort of anticipation at the simple thought of seeing them, seeing their dimples in real life, listening to their voices without the filter of a computer. you believed that they would be the best thing ever to happen to you. and they were. the fansign was great, the concert was great, you saw them so up close you could count the stars in their eyes. you saw the tiny little mole at the bottom of taehyung’s nose, you saw how deep namjoon’s dimple went, you’d even caught jimin’s eye. and yet.

and yet there was a burgeoning, vague sense of emptiness, a vacuum where there was supposed to be only excitement and fulfilment. do they see me? you wonder afterwards. do they know me they way i do them? am i just a black speck in the sea of faces they perform to, am i just another job schedule, another concert stop? you think as you scroll through their airport previews, as they prepare for their flight to the next city. 

the jibes from your friends and family who do not, and will never, understand the way you love them, echo in your mind. 

“do they even know you?”

“is it worth it?”

it is, you decide. because they deserve the brightest stars there are in the world.

 

**ii.**

looking back, you don’t know whether to call this the best part of your _kpop_ life, or the stupidest part. in your defense, it was great back then. you had converted your personal twitter account to a _stan_ account, because that was obviously what everybody did back then. you had obsessively defended them against ridiculous antis, read all sorts of fanfiction about them, even attempted to write one yourself when you could barely even scrape together a decent composition for your English assignment. nothing could stop you; you embodied the kind of youthful exuberance you wish you still had. you would worship them as gods if you could. 

of course, there would always be resistance from the ignorant, but they all knew nothing, obviously.

“they all look the same.”

“okay but. will they ever know you?”

“do you even understand what they’re saying?”

“music transcends all boundaries”, you say, parroting the YouTube comments you had seen, without even understanding what “transcend” means. “and you will never have the capacity to even understand the kind of love i have”, you insist. 

**i.**

who’s that guy with black hair wearing the YOLO sweater, is the first comment your 11-year-old self ever leaves on YouTube. that is how it all started. 

“jeon jeongguk! the golden maknae of bts, he appears at 0:36, 1:05 and 3:09!” comes the reply 2 days later.

you didn’t know what you were getting into then. you originally only liked the boy in the YOLO sweater, but at some point in time all seven of them became equally, ridiculously endearing and adorable. the nights you stayed up to watch  _ just one _ more video, to memorize their names and birthdays and song lyrics, became a routine. they were angels plucked out from the sky and to you, there could be nothing more perfect than them.

 

\--- 

 

**Author's Note:**

> silly, silly 13-year-old me


End file.
